The coffee shop chain plans to open another 225 outlets over the next five
years

Caffe Nero, Britain’s third-largest coffee shop chain, is to create 1,700 jobs in the UK over the next five years with the opening of another 225 outlets, its founder and chief executive has revealed.

Gerry Ford, who founded the company in 1997 with one “premium coffee house” in South Kensington, discloses the plans in an interview with The Telegraph.

He says the group, which is about to open its first coffee house in the US, in Boston, will open the same number of new stores internationally and expects to be in 11 countries by 2020, compared to the current seven, including the US opening.

“Over the next five years, we’ll probably create 1,700 jobs in the UK,” he says. “That’s what we have been doing. It’s our normal pace.

“What you’ve seen is Starbucks tail off in its openings and fixing its portfolio in the UK and Costa Coffee accelerating but we’re continuing to march at our own pace.

Caffe Nero has 566 outlets in the UK, compared to more than 1,600 for Costa Coffee and the 750 of Starbucks, which has closed about 50 UK branches over the past year although it plans to ope a further 100. Caffe Nero also has 84 branches in Poland, Cyprus, Turkey, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr Ford says Caffe Nero is currently opening a branch somewhere in the world every four days.

He envisages “several hundred” stores in the US and said he does not agree with sceptics who doubt the logic of opening in the supposed home of the modern-day coffee house.

He also rejects suggestions that the UK coffee shop market in the UK is becoming saturated.

“There are 5,000 coffee shops in the UK and 40,000 pubs,” he says. “I think the rate of decline of pubs will slow but it will probably bottom out at about 30,000 pubs and coffee houses will continue to grow.

“If you imagine it will be 10,000, that’s another 5,000 to go for,” he adds.